Morris E. Goodman

Morris E. Goodman, or “The Miracle Man”, is an American motivational speaker and author who appeared in The Secret, documentary about the law of attraction as one of the teachers whose life proves that we can overcome everything using the power of our thoughts.

Life

Morris Goodman was born on November 9, 1945. A college dropout in the 1970s, one day he discovered Napoleon Hill‘s Think and Grow Rich! in the local bookstore. He read the book, as well as some other books and tapes by other motivational speakers (Zig Ziglar among others), and what he read and heard changed his life.

He entered the insurance industry, and became a top salesman, who soon built his own company.

What made his nickname, “The Miracle Man”, was the accident that happened in 1981. Goodman took his new airplane out for a test flight, which ended with an accident: the plane crashed, and he stayed paralyzed, unable to move from head to foot, breathe on his own, talk or swallow – unable to do anything but blink his eyes.

His diagnosis was that he’d never breathe, talk or walk ever again in his life; they even assumed he had also lost all brain function – but he had other plans: “I believed with all my heart and soul that I would one day be normal—not hooked to machines, not silent, not fed through tubes, not pushed in a wheelchair.”

It was his sister, Pat, who noticed his limited eye movement, and understood that his eyes would be the only channel through which Goodman could communicate. So she developed a series of charts which contained the alphabet and other important subjects, and Morris was soon able to communicate his thoughts by blinking his eyes.

But he wasn’t satisfied: he wanted to talk, and since talk required the ability to breathe, he started working on using other abdominal muscles (since his diaphragm was destroyed), and after several weeks he was able to take his first breath without the use of a machine. The doctors, who were stunned, slowly reduced the settings on Goodman’s ventilator, and soon he started working with speech therapists, and on June 1, less than four months after his accident, he began to eat again and working on learning to walk again.

Eight months after the crash, Goodman walked out of the hospital. “The Miracle Man” was the nickname he was given by his doctors, and he kept it later on.

Later in life, Morris began a series of motivational seminars alongside his mentor Zig Ziglar, and, later, forFortune 500 companies. He became internationally known when he appeared in The Secret, and a feature film of his story is currently in development.

Teachings and Philosophy

Goodman’s sister once said that she thinks her brother found his calling as a motivational speaker in the hospital: even then he was spurring patients to work toward a recovery that seemed unimaginable.

As word about the “Miracle Man” spread, Goodman was invited on the motivational speaking circuit with his idol Ziglar and other famous motivational speakers. Soon enough his message of triumph against enormous odds through a Herculean effort combined with a refusal to let himself be SNIOP’ed (his acronym for “susceptible to the negative influence of other people”) resonated with corporations as well, so he began presenting motivational seminars for such clients as AFLAC, United Auto Workers, Kirby Company. Tyco Healthcare, Sharing Seminars…

I have a story: a one in a billion story. It’s a story that can help so many people. Not everybody will be in an airplane crash and destroy their whole body like I did. But everybody has adversity and challenges to deal with in their life.

He shares his six secrets to a fulfilling life:

It doesn’t matter if you stumble or fall, only that you get back up. Every time.

Start every day with a prayer of Gratitude, it improves your attitude.

Money can buy a nice house, but it can’t buy a home. It can buy a nice bed, but it can’t buy a good night’s sleep. It can buy food but not an appetite. It can buy medicine, but not health. It can buy companionship but not love.

Books

Morris Goodman wrote one inspiring book about his experience:

The Miracle Man: An Inspiring Story of Motivation and Courage

Quotes

Man becomes what he thinks about.

The only thing I had to work with in the hospital was my mind, and once you have your mind, you can put things back together again.

You can do and have and be things that people once said that’s impossible for you to do and have and be.

And here’s a video in which Morris Goodman shares his incredible story: